Writer, Lover, Misfit

Free Speech Isn't Free by Roosh V: Book Review

Roosh Valizedah’s latest book “Free Speech Isn’t Free“is the story of Roosh’s worldwide speaking tour in the summer of 2015. As a writer for many years, Roosh has built up a significant following. He started his writing career writing books on how to attract, approach, engage and seduce women in various countries. His “Bang” series was successful with men who, similar to Roosh, found that the conventional wisdom offered for meeting and attracting women was not yielding the desired results: sexual and romantic encounters or relationships. Being “nice” and doting on a woman was backfiring as good, kind men saw the objects of their affection and desire traipse off with bad boys.

As Roosh’s books got more attention, Roosh started to attract controversy. In the politically correct Western culture, Roosh’s critically honest style of writing angered both the purists and the feminists. A sexual encounter that would be praised by feminists as empowering, passionate, exploratory and bold when written with flowery descriptions by any erotica author was considered depraved and predatory when described in Roosh’s matter of fact, plain language. Or was it because Roosh is a man and male sexual desire is taboo, whereas women’s sexual liberation is celebrated?

As a writer of many books, a successful blog, owner of Return of Kings as well as host to a forum, Roosh has developed a community where men can speak freely about issues that concern them; from sex to health to politics. But many of these men have never met Roosh or his other readers. Further, Roosh’s interests were developing into cultural critique more than the desires of youth and sexual conquest. As Roosh matured, or as he dove deeper into philosophical, historical and cultural interests, it seems his thoughts turned more to the world’s needs and problems and away from his own.

Roosh and his friend and confidante Quintus Curtius who writes The Fortress of the Mind, began discussing the fundamentals of masculinity and what a new movement for masculine men would look like. They wrote articles and participated in YouTube discussions about not only what cultural issues were driving the relationships between men and women to become so toxic and full of animosity but also what kind of movement would it take to try to correct this destructive path. From this, they developed the principles of neomasculinity which along with culture, women and relationships, was the basis for Roosh’s “State of Man” tour.

The online world connects us but also makes us feel isolated. The desire to make connections in real life is strong as we are social creatures. Responding to requests from his readers to meet him and each other, a desire to share the principles of neomasculinity and move his efforts in writing more toward making a difference in the world than making a difference in his own pleasure seems to be a turning point both for Roosh’s maturity, goals and the direction of his writing. So he planned a speaking tour to take his message directly to his readers. To support and build community in real life.

Finding like-minded people is exhilarating and refreshing. Especially in a time where having unpopular or controversial beliefs is cause for exile, making connections with like-minded individuals is not only beneficial for emotional health but as we see in Free Speech Isn’t Free, it’s necessary for survival.

Free Speech Isn’t Free tells the story of Roosh’s world speaking tour. The intentions of his tour were to share the principles of NeoMasculinity, discuss the cultural influences that led to such a demise in relationships and the animosity toward masculine men. What happened on the tour was far more concerning: Large groups, including political leaders, huge press organizations and grassroots activists launched a campaign to censor, intimidate and threaten Roosh. Their goal was not only to stop his tour, but to silence him, slander him and promote their own agenda.

This book is the story of how a couple of biased and dishonest articles ignited a media assault to slander and censor a man with unpopular opinions.

This book is about the power of an enabled liberal media that can spin a story in a certain way to create mass hysteria leading to violent mobs that put others, including the innocent family of the target, in physical danger.

This book is about the lack of empathy and desire for harm that is blatant in the liberal media for anyone with conservative, traditional or unpopular views.

This book is the story of how one or two press articles can create a tsunami of death threats, doxing, and rumor mongering.

This book is the story of how many political and social leaders are more inclined to jump on a bandwagon of mob hate to garner attention and brownie points with a groupthink audience than to put effort or time into research on a subject.

Finally, this book is the story of how 90 online friends beat the system by banding together to support Roosh.

Roosh and his tribe of supporters implemented the tools and strategies they learned about human nature, dishonest liberal media, feminist agenda, social justice warrior offensive tactics and the power of narrative that they developed while studying culture, dating and relationships. Using Twitter, their blogs and the forum they communicated in a public space and used humor, distraction, confusion and absurdity to effectively send their opponents on a wild goose chase.

Roosh quickly identified who was with him (his readers) and who was against him (SJW, feminists, and the media).

In the end, Roosh and his tribe of 90 proved to be the non-violent side of the battle. Certainly tensions were high, but even under tremendous stress and pressure there was no need to attack or threaten their aggressors like they were attacked. Simply playing on their distrustful, angry nature and cleverly baiting them with “triggering” ideas sent the SJW hordes into a self-destructive paranoia that made them turn on themselves until they self-destructed. As the hysterical mobs argued about what was real and who to trust and reacted emotionally to their undeniable defeat, Roosh completed his tour and went home to life as usual and wrote this unforgettable book.

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4 thoughts on “Free Speech Isn't Free by Roosh V: Book Review”

Roosh is an interesting cat, I have to say. I came across him first in 2011 or so, when another site linked to him as what was “wrong” with men. I found him more humerous and hyperbolic than harmful, but his scene wasn’t for me.

Fast forward to 2015, when I see another link to him from an article by Milo Yiannopoulos. To my amazement, Roosh has become…a traditionalist? He believes in…monogamy, family, faith, and defending Western civilization?

Like I said, interesting guy. I don’t agree with him on many things, but I’m glad he does what he does. The dangerous thinkers are more fun, after all, and if they’re scaring the right people then they’re probably on to something. Everybody–repeat: everybody–should be afforded the right to speak and assemble, as long as no actual crimes are committed (as opposed to, you know, thoughtcrime).

I agree. He said somewhere in his book or blog that he was surprised himself that his interests in meeting girls and getting laid have led him to concern himself with culture, politics and religion and to start the Neomasculinity movement, but it makes sense to me as I’ve been on a similar path. I wanted to write about female sexuality in an empowering way, I wanted to write about how to meet and date men and have healthy relationships. But exploring these subjects and seeing how incredibly toxic they are and finding how the (allegedly) simplest thing two people can do (meet, fall in love, fuck) is the source of the majority of our pain and suffering, you realize how there must be larger forces at work. When you try to get to the root of it, you find an absolute cesspool of cultural, political and religious influences.

His writing has improved and his mindset is more outwardly focused on how can he improve the lives of men vs. how can he improve his own life. To think that a horny cad could mature into a noble leader of men seems odd but then again, isn’t that the story of so many with provocative and revolutionary ideas?